


I'm here

by aorivelai



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Depression, Imaginary Friends, M/M, Mehh, Suicide, just the end, meanie, wow most of this fic isn't tHaT dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 15:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15197726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aorivelai/pseuds/aorivelai
Summary: If good things lasted forever,Would we appreciate how precious they are?-Alternatively, where Mingyu has an imaginary friend, who has to watch on as Mingyu's life spirals out of control. Helpless.





	I'm here

**Author's Note:**

> So I finished this back in March, but I must've forgotten to post it or something coz I was scrolling through my files and then found this? I really dunno where this came from, but I think it's supposed to be, like, really, really loosely inspired by Calvin and Hobbes. I should warn that there's a somewhat graphic suicide scene at the end, and mention of depression, so, just a warning. 
> 
> I actually haven't stepped into the seventeen fandom for a while, so, hey? How y'all doing?

I.

_“It’s funny how day by day, nothing changes._

_But when you look back,_

_everything is different.”_

*

 

 

One moment, he wasn’t, and then the next moment, he was.

He blinks, mouth agape as he looks around. The first thing he notes is that it’s painfully bright, the sun at its peak without a single cloud visible in the skies he views. Through a window.

This leads to the realisation that he is in a room, which is in a house, which is somewhere in a world.

Wonwoo doesn’t know how he knows this, but he’s not complaining. Though he does feel a tad bit overwhelmed, and wonders what to do with this newfound knowledge.

 

In the room were the following: a small bright red wooden desk, which a plastic neon green chair where one of the legs are barely attached coexists beside. 

A colourful carpet with rainbow dots splashed at random across its expanse.

A brown, wooden wardrobe, stuck to the walls, tightly shut by a lock across the handles.

Four white, creamy walls inclosing the room, of which some are adorned with various drawings and paintings of little technique; mostly pointless scribbling or blobs of paint thrown upon the vast emptiness of paper.

A pile of stuffed toys lying in a half-opened chest. A fluffy brown teddy bear, with a sewn-on scarf, is missing an eye. Its other eye, a blue button sewn on with yellow thread, peaks at Wonwoo curiously from the top of the pile.

A mirror, with a frame of blue and seashells, nailed carefully to the wall beside the wardrobe; Wonwoo can’t see himself, but reassures himself, that surely, it can’t matter too much.

A bedside table, of which on it sits an impressive clay dragon-shaped lamp winding around a pointy white-tipped mountain, plastic white smoke drifting from its nostrils, and a plain green alarm clock.

Beside the bedside table is a bed, with black wooden frames.

The bed has a pillow, and a duvet. On both is a 3D cartoon dinosaur, roaring and running through miniscule forest. Or is it the dinosaur that’s the giant? Probably.

It becomes evident that something of great importance is on the bed.

 

 

A five-year-old boy, bouncing up and down, messing up the sheets and making the bed squeak alarmingly loudly, like it’s going to collapse into a heap of wooden planks and cotton and fabric at any moment. 

He wears a simple striped white and blue shirt, and dark brown shorts. His laughing fills the entire room, as he manages to somehow land on his feet after an attempt at backflipping, before losing his balance and toppling backwards onto the bed with a happy shriek. Wonwoo marvels at the fact that nothing had been broken yet.

Then the boy looks straight at Wonwoo, his eyes glistening in the sunlight. His face is a picture of pure elation, eyes crinkled and nose scrunched, laughing until he runs out of breath, brownish-blackish hair ruffled.

“Come play!” he cries, and pats a spot next to him. Then he gets up, and jumping with all his might, cackling at the top of his lungs as he throws himself around.

Wonwoo decides it does look kind of fun.

 

 

Later, exhausted beyond belief, Mingyu invites Wonwoo to a game of chess. Throwing everything out of his toy chest and reaching into the very bottom, he grasps a wooden checkered box and heaves it out, almost crushing his fingers as he jerkily places it down onto the carpet.

“I don’t know how to play chess,” Wonwoo hurriedly exclaims as Mingyu pulls out a tray from within a box.

“Good,” Mingyu says, grinning. “Because I don’t either!”

They play until the sun retires under the horizon. They set up a fortress of pawns, in which sit a king and a queen. When they get bored of that, the pawns become an army of aliens, with the ~~bishops~~ pawns with funny hats invading the earth, and the only people left to defend the earth being ~~rooks~~ cowboys ~~on knights~~ on horseback. The other pieces become ginormous, deadly monsters with spiky tails and sharpened teeth from a foreign planet. 

It’s great fun. Mingyu does a brilliant nasally voiceover for the leader of the aliens, and then attempts growling for the monsters. And then they chase each other around the tad bit confined room (though they couldn’t care less) and pretended it was the prehistoric jungle underneath the oceans. In the end, both of them collapses, rolling on the ground, unable to control their giggles.

 

The stars are out by now, and an almost-full moon shines a dim light into the room.

“You’re having fun, aren’t you?”

Mingyu’s mum leans on the doorframe, crossing her arms but smiling. It’s a nice smile, almost identical to Mingyu’s own, one that radiates warmth and kindness. She wears a purple and blue knitted sweater, and she pushes her round glasses up as she taps her watches and tuts.

“Dinnertime, Mingyu. Your dad made your favourite today – ramen! Let’s eat it before it gets cold, alright?”

Mingyu jumps up and throws his hands in the air, cheering enthusiastically, before he suddenly stops and makes a conflicted expression, mouth pulling into a worried frown. 

“Can my friend come too?”

“Who?”

“My friend, um…” Mingyu turns to Wonwoo, alarmed.  “What’s your name?”

Wonwoo shrugs, because he didn’t have one. Not then.

 

Mingyu’s mum drops her smile, and her eyebrows twist in concern and confusion as she looks at the empty space of which Mingyu is talking to exasperatedly, waving his hands around in mock frustration at empty space.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Everyone has a name!”

There’s silence for another beat before his shoulders sag and he sighs. Turning to his mum, he cries, “my friend doesn’t even know his own name!”

 _An imaginary friend?_ She thinks worriedly, scrutinising over Mingyu and checking his temperature with her hand. He’s fine. _Is this healthy? Is this okay?_

_Lots of children have imaginary friends, right?_

 

She shrugs, smiling, though it didn’t reach her worried eyes. “Well, I guess your friend can come and eat with us,” _can’t do much harm, can it?_ “just, you know he’s just imaginary, right?”

_Imaginary?_

“Yea, okay mum, I know,” Mingyu groans, attempting a sigh, and then smiles at the ground, sadly.

 _But I’m real,_ Wonwoo almost protests.

“Okay then,” his mum says, sighing in very unsubtle relief. “Wash your hands, okay?”

 

 

“Wonwoo!”

Standing next to Mingyu, as the water keeps flowing and Mingyu’s sleeves accidentally get wet, as they slip down from where they’d been rolled. Wonwoo frowns, before glancing back up at Mingyu, whose face is lit up with excitement at the word he’d just uttered.

“Huh?”

“That can be your name!”

“Why?”

“Because, why not? Wonwoo. Yea.”

“Where did it come from, though?”

“Oh, it’s the name of my dead cat. It had black fur and had brown eyes, and you kind of remind me of him.” 

“Oh, okay. Thanks?”

“You’re welcome,” Mingyu says, humming happily as he grins into the mirror, at Wonwoo.

Wonwoo smiles back.

 

II.

_Life is never quite as scary_

_when you’ve got a best friend._

*

 

A flock of birds fly over them, blocking out the sunlight momentarily. Mingyu clambers as quickly as he can manage up the rickety rungs of the little yellow slide. It’s a couple of months later, and they’re at a nearby playground which also consists of a rusty old swing, a blackened see-saw and a dirt-ridden sandpit. But they don’t really care.

Wonwoo is awaiting his turn at the foot of the slide, gazing at the blades of grass dancing and twirling in the breezes.

 

“Hey, Won, if you could have three wishes, what would it be?”

 

Wonwoo looks up from his daze. “Huh?”

“You know how in Aladdin, the genie gives him three wishes because he rubbed this lamp? What would you ask for?”

“Ooh,” Wonwoo beams. “Dragons, for one thing. Then some sick magic powers. And then to be allowed to stay at Disneyland for the rest of my life.”

Mingyu sits silently, brow creased in deep contemplation. Wonwoo feels slightly judged.

“Well, what would you ask for?” Wonwoo asks, raising an eyebrow and squinting at the same time. The sun is starting to get into his eyes.

“For you to be real,” Mingyu exclaims, without a second’s hesitation.

“Really?” Wonwoo cries, eyes wide.

“Seriously.”

“But what about dragons?”

Mingyu finally pushes himself down the slide, and then falls off into the sand with a small thump. He looks up and grins sheepishly.

“And then dragons,” he says.

 

 

 

“I would like that too.”

“What?”

They’re walking back from the playground, as the sunset paints the sky in streaks of orange and pink. Wonwoo kicks at a stone, but hurts his toe instead, as a sore reminder that he couldn’t change anything, and that _he wasn’t real._

“Y’know, what you said before.”

“For dinosaurs to still be around?”

“No, no, nevermind.”

 

*

 

They walk through the Wild West, with cowboy hats and ~~stick~~ horses and ~~plastic spray-~~ guns, shooting at each other, shooting at trees, and defeats the Great Beast of the West with one shot, ~~or where Mingyu accidentally threw his plastic pink gun at the neighbour’s sleeping tomcat and almost gets bitten.~~

Then they’re on a UFO as justice fighters for the galaxy, flying through outer space with no particular destination in sight, but eager for some aliens to fight. They travel through dimensions and galaxies and universes, find entire alien civilisations, sit upon the stars and find carrots with the rabbits on the moon, in which then they’re cordially accommodated and served cheese, ~~or where they run through the neighbourhood on scooters and then almost get lost but still stumble home to find afternoon tea waiting for them.~~

And then they’re pirates, fearless and brave and ambitious and ruthless, determined to rule the oceans blue and all its treasures. They sail in their grand pirate ship ~~sandpit~~ , flags a-flying and unicorns on the mast, and shoot any fish and birds that dare cross their path, until they finally arrive at the final boss, ~~Mingyu’s dad~~ Caption Blackbeard, and engage in an epic and heat-stopping fight of the wits, in which, of course, they reign victorious, ~~or where they lightly swing plastic dollar-store swords at Mingyu’s dad, who playfully fake-collapses and they prance around him, laughing and cheering.~~

Then maybe they’re star basketball players, dribbling through the court in a new world record, and then he shoots…oh! A three pointer! Straight through the net, a clean kill – Wonwoo and Mingyu take up the trophy for the FIBA World Cup.

Then they’re firefighters, putting their lives on the line to save the helpless in danger.

Detectives, right about to get to the bottom of a murder mystery that’d been unsolved for years.

Lions broken out of their cages and on a rampage to devour everyone in the city.

Dragons, flying through mountains, seas, plains and finally at rest among piles of gold.

Mad scientists, accidentally mutilating the entire world population into flies, and then _accidentally_ detonating the world.

Superheroes, flying through cities, capes flowing behind them and saving ten cities from the monstrous super villain, The Cat, with their epic laser eyes.

 

Every single day is fully busy with magic, with no space for anything else.

 

 

But at the end of the day, they’re forced still forced to go to bed, and they lie there, today gone and past and only tomorrow to think about, and they fall asleep, to travel to the realms of sleep, only to have more and more adventures than did awake.

Together.

 

*

 

On the first day of school, Mingyu gets up two hours early, and giggles nervously the entire morning, though it’s painfully conspicuous that he’s scared.

“Hey, you okay?”

They’re seated at the back of his mum’s car, a corroded brow Toyota, which jerks up and down as they pass through rocky ground. The school comes up before them in plain view and Mingyu visibly gulps, getting giddier than ever.

“Yea, I’m fine. How about you?” Mingyu is biting his fingernails as he says this his eyes dart everywhere but Wonwoo.

“You know that I’ll always still be by your side, right?”

Mingyu shifts his eyes to Wonwoo.

 

“Promise?” he whispers.

 

“Promise. Pinkie promise.”

Mingyu’s frown trembles, and then finally gives in to a smile, a beautiful, real smile as their fingers interlock.

Wonwoo always loved that dopey smile so, so much.

 

 

 _Though Mingyu shys away from everyone, even running away from a well-meaning plaited girl at one point, and makes a point not to utter a single word to anyone, he has fun,_ his teacher notes, concerned but curious.

_Maybe the most fun out of anyone else._

_He laughs the entire day, even as he plays with no one but himself._

_Even as he finds no one to play the see-saw with, no one to draw with, no one to sit with at lunchtime and no one to play tic tac toe with, he smiles._

The teacher recommends in her report that; _he should go see a psychiatrist to help, for this would cause problems down the line._

 

 

But Mingyu has the time of his life, and back then, that was all that mattered.

If only that was how it was now.

 

*

 

When Mingyu’s beloved dog, Aji, dies, he locks himself into his room and cries into his bedsheets.

Wonwoo sits beside him and slings an arm over his shoulder, head bowed. His parents bang at the door and yell his name, but after too long without a reply they give up and leave.

 

There is nothing to be heard except for Mingyu’s quiet weeping.

 

“Mum says it’s just part of the life cycle,” Mingyu whispers, sobs racking his body as he furiously wipes at his tears. “That things die all the time.”

Wonwoo stays silent.

“I don’t want it to be like that.”

He’s speaking so softly Wonwoo can hardly hear him.

“Wonwoo?”

“Yea?”

“Don’t you ever ever ever die, okay? You’re not allowed to. You’re going to stay with me forever and ever and ever.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere”

“Swear on your life?”

“Swear on my life,” Wonwoo whispers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

III.

_If good things lasted forever,_

_Would we appreciate how precious they are?_

*

 

It’s raining on the last day Mingyu was happy.

Gloomy, dark clouds have covered the skies, and though at first it’s just a light shower, it soon increases into a full-blown storm. People sprint for cover as people groan and whine and curse the skies, which rages on despite verbal backlash.

Mingyu groans too, but Wonwoo can see that he doesn’t mind at all.

In fact, his eyes sparkling despite no clear light source, Wonwoo can tell he’s enjoying it immensely. Even though the water soaks through his shirt, his jeans and his hair transforms into messy dripping clusters, he starts laughing blissfully.  

Wonwoo eyes him, questioningly.

“Why do you like the rain so much, Mingyu?”

Mingyu laughs.

“What’s there not to love about it?”

Wonwoo’s gaze flitters back to the clouds, and the skies. Little raindrops splatter upon his skin, falling upon the ground around him, pit-pat on the roofs, a little stream forming around the edges of the roads. The sand beneath their feet turns dark and solid, little splats at a time, and the previously calm oceans over the horizon become uneven. A thin breeze flitters through the crowds.

It’s chaotic but calm at the same time.

“You’ve got a point.”

Mingyu’s mum pulls him up and yells at him to get going. Mingyu looks at Wonwoo, shrugs, and then gets up from their little red mat.

“Why do you think it rains?” asks Mingyu, hands in his green hoodie as they walk along up the rocky cement paths, trapped within a throng of disappointed beachgoers.

“Why? Because of laws of the earth, I guess.” Wonwoo muses.

“I always thought it was because the clouds were sad,” Mingyu says, looking up. “And then I thought, but what if they were just laughing so much that they started crying? That’s what made me like the rain. The thought that the clouds were just really happy, despite that they blocked out the sun, that they caused a sheet of grey to cover everything. Maybe that was because they didn’t like the sunlight.”

“Whoa,” says Wonwoo, slightly taken aback.

“Did I make any sense? Probably not. I’m sorry,” Mingyu takes a deep breath and then lets release a nervous chuckle.

They’re eight years old by now. Second-graders.

“No, that was just…very deep.”

“Deep?”

“Yea, like, you could probably write some emo song with those words.”

“Maybe I should be a singer.”

“You can’t sing.”

“Oh, how would you know?”

“Because – wait, where’s your mum? Or your dad?”

 

They stop and turn around. Sure enough, Mingyu’s mum, in her obvious rose-patterned skirt and fluorescent pink sunhat is nowhere in sight, swallowed whole by the masses.  Neither is his father, in his embarrassing chemist-bought Hawaii button-up shirt.

“Oh crap,” Mingyu utters, becoming frantic as his gaze darts from person to person, eyes starting to water up. His heart is beating, loudly and rapidly, and his pulse is doubling. Wonwoo can feel it.

“Hey,” Wonwoo murmurs, grabbing at Mingyu’s hand, but his hand passes right through.

Huh?

 

Mingyu is running now, further and further away, into the unescapable crowds.

“Mingyu!” cries Wonwoo, chasing after him.

“Mingyu!” he bellows as soon as he spots him again. The rain grows, and lightning crackles, and thunder booms, drowning out his voice.

 

“MINGYU!” Wonwoo screams.

 

Mingyu finally turns around, and Wonwoo sees that his eyes are bloodshot. Tears stream down his cheeks. He’s gasping for breath, as passer-byers walk past with pitying glances.

 

“Mingyu,” gasps Wonwoo, finally grasping his hand and squeezing it with all his might. “I’m here.”

 

After Mingyu calms down, avoiding the questioning of concerned onlookers, they tear away from the crowds and seat themselves on a nearby swings. They sit in silence.

They’re as soaked as ever.

“Thanks,” says Mingyu, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

“All good.” Wonwoo grasps the chains holding the swing up and smiles reassuringly. “We’re going to catch a cold if we stay out in the rain any longer.”

“Oh well.” Mingyu pushes him off the ground and swings his legs back and forth.

“Oh well,” Wonwoo echoes, and then they laugh.

“Oh well!” yells Mingyu as they swing higher and higher, until their toes touch the leaves of an overhanging tree, until they’re flying through space and time as euphoria seeps back into their veins, their worries forgotten. Just for a few minutes of nirvana.

 

Later, the clouds take their leave, and the sun’s rays flood the atmosphere and chases away the thunder and lightning and chaos, Mingyu falls asleep underneath a tree and Wonwoo sits beside him, a protector. Though then he falls asleep as well, in the pleasant, gratifying warmth.

What’s to worry about when they have each other?

 

The day can’t compete with the day they went to Disneyland, or the day Mingyu caught his first fish, or even the day Mingyu learnt to ride his bike for the first time, crashed into the pig-faced principal and gave him a fractured leg for two months.

But after approximately three hours, that moment when Mingyu was awoken by his parents, and saw their faces and was pulled into their embrace, relief surrounding the scene, all he really felt was pure happiness, even as tears broke out his eyes and he cried, big, heaving sobs and melted into his parents’ hugs.

Wonwoo decides that as miserable as the clouds could be, maybe Mingyu did have a point. Maybe they really were just that happy.

He watches on with a trembling smile.

Attempting to crush down the flashes of memory of his hand slipping, falling right through Mingyu’s as if it were thin air, and how he couldn’t feel him at all. Anxiety building up in his chest, he takes a deep breath, and shakes his head. It can’t matter too much.

Right?

 

For the rest of the day, they go to the movies, where Mingyu feasts through two jumbo-sized buckets of popcorn and a large orange soda, stuffing his face full throughout the entire movie, hardly even paying attention to the screen.

Afterwards, his parents treat him to an entire afternoon at the arcade, and Mingyu runs through, laughing and shrieking, and makes it through half the machines and equipment.

Then when he gets home, exhausted but beyond joyful, Mingyu falls asleep with both his parents beside him, and they let him watch television until finally, after a while of struggling to keep his eyes open, he drops off, eyelid fluttering to a close, soft snoring filling the room.

Wonwoo sleeps on the corner of the room, no space for him on the bed, and smiles at this calming scene.

 

 

 

Then his lips waver, and falls.

 

 

 

His parents carefully climb off, and stay silent, their heads bowed as one after another, they leave the room. Mingyu’s mum all but slams the door, and Mingyu flinches and stirs but somehow doesn’t awake.

Wonwoo begs the fates that he doesn’t.

 

The screaming came.

_“What the hell?”_

There’s a clinking of beer bottles against the rest in the cooler below the fridge, and a groan.

_“You lost him, in the rain, for half a day. He could’ve gotten sick! He could’ve been kidnapped! He, he could’ve-”_

A cracking, a sob.

_“How is this my fault? If I remember right, we agreed that you’d be the one to look out for him today! Dear god, woman, can’t you admit when something’s your fucking fault?”_

More sobbing. Something slams, creating a bang that resonates through the entire house.

Wonwoo whimpers, and covers his ears, glancing at Mingyu. He’s still buried in his pillow, not a single sign of rousing. Wonwoo breathes a sigh of relief.

_“You’re going to wake Mingyu up! Is it so hard to be quiet?”_

_“Oh Mingyu! That stupid kid – what are we going to do with him, huh? He’s retarded, and you just keep denying that even though you fucking know how he is.”_

 

Silence.

_“What did you just say?”_

_“Nothing, nothing, I-”_

_“Get out. Get out!”_

_“This is my house! If anything, you should be the one that goes-”_

Glass meets tile as the sound of shattering slams the house. Wonwoo’s gaze dart to Mingyu, whose eyes have flung open. He stares, wide-eyed at the door, and then at Wonwoo, crouched in the corner, fear interlacing his gaze.

Wonwoo runs to Mingyu, and covers his ears as best he can with Mingyu’s cartoon dinosaur pillow.

“What’s going on?” Mingyu whispers.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Wonwoo whispers back. “Just, just go back to sleep. Please.”

Mingyu, on the verge of tears, does as he’s told, squeezing his eyes shut. The he grasps the edges of his pillow and covers his ears.

_“GET OUT.”_

_“I-”_

_“NOW.”_

_“Fucking hell.”_

The slam of the door shakes the whole house, vibrations still encircling the walls long after, echoing in everyone’s ears.

 

Mingyu, still squeezing his eyes, holds onto Wonwoo.

And a newly-sharpened blade is driven into Wonwoo’s barely-beating heart.

His dad never returned.

 

 

 

 

IV.

_That’s one of the remarkable things about life._

_It’s never so bad it can’t get worse._

*

 

At the back is a cake.

A rushed cake, one of those that one could get for around five dollars at the grocer’s. It flies around its plastic container so much that the formerly transparent container is reduced to an opaque, smeared white mess, until the lid falls off and the cake splats, anything that was perhaps would’ve been worth salvaging now ruined.

Next to that is a grey plastic bag, containing another plastic bag. This one is colourfully decorated, and within it sits snugly two candlesticks, one with a red outline of a ‘1’ and the other an oval, a perfect zero.

Both crack on impact.

A hastily wrapped box, stuck together frantically with little bits of tape. The edges of the paper are obviously ripped by hand. It’s falling now too, and the wrapping completely falls apart, the tape unable to hold on as it crashes against the ground. It’s a Star Wars Lego set, and the little figurines are flying through the box. Part of the cardboard box tears, and the little multicoloured bricks spill out.

It mixes with the frosting of the cake as the world turns and turns and turns.

Then when it stops, everything stops.

 

There’s screaming.

 

And then there’s scarlet, thick liquid, trickling down, down, and into little puddles that eventually soak through the grey flooring.

They can try however hard to save her, but it’s too late.

As a last, desperate breath is taken before soul escapes from its anguish and goes to rest.

Far, far too early.

 

 

 

The crescent moon is hidden among the clouds, as well as the stars and galaxies.

Absorbed in the screen in front of him, in the controller that was in his hands and the sounds that sounded from his earphones, he doesn’t hear the soft knocks.

His eyes are also completely glazed over. Eventually, he dies in the game, and he throws the controller at the nearest window and screamed.

Anger was coursing through him, rising steadily and was threatening to erupt, and at that moment, Mingyu hated everything and everyone. All of humanity, all his sniggering classmates who’d handed him a callous gift box of squirming worms, his sardonic teachers, the very house he resided in, the gushing winds and flowers and birds, the skies and the earth, the game he was playing, every little piece of mass in the universe, including himself, and his mum.

His mum, who couldn’t even come home to her only son’s birthday.

Who, for someone who worked at least fourteen hours a day every freaking day of the week, every week of the month and every month of the year, could _possibly_ find just a shred of time for her son’s tenth birthday.

But as the time ticked by, and seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours, despair ate him inside out rapidly, until all that was left was fury.

Uncontrollable, raging fury.

 

 

Wonwoo, heart aching, puts a hand on Mingyu’s shoulder.

Mingyu flinches, and then jerks away, tears streaming down his cheeks like raindrops.

 

 _“Get away from me.”_ Mingyu whispers.

 

Wonwoo doesn’t know what to do.

He’s too scared, terrified to do anything, in fear of what it might happen, but all he wants to do is to wrap his arms around Mingyu and cry together, until they forgot everything, until they were the only two people in the world.

To tell Mingyu that he was really, really sorry he couldn’t do anything as Mingyu was tormented.

That he would give the world to be able to demolish the school and all its inhabitants.

And that everything would pass, that happiness was just hiding around the corner, that everything would be fine.

 

That he was still here.

 

The knocking at the door intensifies, and yet Mingyu doesn’t react.

 _“GET AWAY FROM ME!”_ Mingyu screams, causing Wonwoo to stumble back, the words hitting him like a freight train.

 

 

 

The door is rammed open, and police officers charge in, eyes darting everywhere, only to find a single red-eyed little boy in the middle of a messy living room, fire blazing in his eyes, which quickly turn to terror. The tears rise back into his eyes.

There’s hurried boots against tile.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” A female officer, brown hair wrapped in a tight bun crouches down beside Mingyu.

 

He stands frozen in terrified silence.

“Is there anyone else in this house?”

“N-no-”

“Who were you talking to, sweetie?”

Mingyu doesn’t reply, only gawks, eyes wide.

“W-why are you here?”

The officer sighs, signals to her partner to check the house, and then turns back to Mingyu, smiling reassuringly, smiling a wide smile that doesn’t match her pitying eyes.

“Is this where Kim Ha-Yeon lives? Is she your mum?”

 

“Y-yea.”

 

The officer takes a deep breath, and clasps Mingyu’s shoulder, rubbing it comfortingly.

“Do you have any relatives you could stay at for now?” she says softly.

“W-where’s my mum?” Mingyu hated how little-kid he sounded, but terror had seized him and was now holding him completely captive.

The officer sighs again, and gets up.

“Do you know where your father is?”

“I d-don’t k-know.”

“That’s okay darling. Just, just come with me, okay?”

 

 

Mingyu feels nothing. But he also feels everything.

He’s numb, there’s blood rushing through his ears, roaring, and drowning out anything else.

Because he isn’t stupid.

 

When his father opens the rusted door, he was neither drunk or high, which is definitely a surprise.

“What do you want?” he mutters as his eyes scan the officer from head to toe, and then turns to Mingyu and snorts.

“Can we talk inside? _Preferably without the kid listening._ ” The officer whispers the last part, but Mingyu picks it up anyways in the silence of the night. All other emotion had been replaced by trepidation and dread.

Mingyu’s dad groaned slightly, rubbing his temples, before guiding Mingyu up a set of creaking wooden stairs and roughly shoving him into a small room and growling a threatening _“Don’t you move.”_

The walls are as thin as paper, as it’s an old apartment that hadn’t be furnished or renovated in at least fifty years. And so Mingyu hears every single word that is exchanged.

 

“His mum passed away in a car crash this afternoon, Mr Kim, at around five o’clock. Sped a red light and crashed into a truck. Died on impact. My condolences, Mr Kim. I’m very sorry for your loss-”

“I’m not having the kid. I’ve got a hundred other problems and I don’t need another one. Give him to his grandparents or something.”

“Sir, his grandmother died of cancer last year. His grandfather is suffering from a severe case of dementia.”

Five seconds of silence.

“As the closest relative to Kim Mingyu, you are now his guardian. He doesn’t have anyone else to go to, sir, and I hope you acknowledge that.”

“Geez, what the hell was Ha-Yeon so rushed for?”

“According to our records, it’s Mingyu’s birthday today. No traces of alcohol or drugs were detected, so it is to our belief that she was in too much of a hurry to get home to celebrate little Mingyu’s birthday. Perhaps you could provide some comfort?”

Three seconds of silence before a sarcastic chuckle rings through the house.

“Fine,” he says.

“Fine?”

“Yea, I’ll have him, what the hell.”

“Your cooperation is appreciated, Mr Kim.”

Footsteps sound as the two get up, and walk to the door.

“Goodnight, sir. Take good care of that child, alright?”

“Alright.”

The door closes gently.

 

The room reeks of cigarettes, and suspicious white powder adorn its ripping, dilapidated walls, and a cracked hole-ridden ceiling threatens to fall at any moment. He feels as if he’s suffocating.

Stairs creak and scream as his dad walks upstairs.

The door slams open, and Mingyu whimpers as his father, who once held him up the skies and called him a superhero, raises his fist, and then it rockets down, bruising Mingyu’s face a dozen shades of purples and reds. A sickening crack vibrates through the room.

A muffled cry.

Eyes almost used up their tears.

A bloodied shirt.

 

A snap.

 

Mingyu breaks that day, any last bit of life in him dissipates into little particles, blown away in the storm of reality.  

He sits there, a soulless body.

And along in that storm, was any last shred of his childhood.

 

 

Mingyu never saw Wonwoo.

Ever again.

 

But he was still there.

Watching, unable to do anything as his best friend went through hell on earth.

Crying.

 

_“I’m here.”_

 

 

 

 

 

V.

_I_

_n the book of life,_

_The answers aren’t in the back._

*

 

It’s the day. Wonwoo can feel it in his bones, his consciousness betraying his nothingness.

He’s been dying for six years now, six years of pure pain and suffering.

 _What am I anymore?_ Wonwoo wonders as he stares up at the twinkling little lights before him, mapped out in constellations and a thousand paths, with no clear destination or ending.

_Why am I still here?_

Quiet but rugged breathing fills the air and Wonwoo turns to Mingyu, who’s beside him, crying softly. A teardrop crawls down to his ears, and he slowly brings the back of his hand and brushes at it. Staring at the stars have always made him feel better, though he couldn’t ignore his aching body, pins and needles killing his every inch of skin. Though he couldn’t forget, though he couldn’t stargaze his reality away.

 

Mingyu has tried to wake up from this nightmare.

 

He chuckles, so quietly it’s almost lost in the whistling of a breeze, picking up around them, and it’s one covered with misery beyond compare.

They’re on a rooftop. Of what building, Wonwoo can’t actually remember, but it doesn’t matter. Not really, when Wonwoo knows exactly what Mingyu has in mind as he glances down, at the road, ten storeys below.

To wake up and find it was all a dream. Usually it’s a pinch to the arm, but sometimes, it’s a dozen cuts to the wrist, bloodied scarlet lines slashing through pale skin.

And sometimes, that doesn’t work.

But what about a jump off a building into solid concrete? What was there left to lose? What was there left?

Wonwoo can see it in those eyes a soul that’d long given up, and dangling on the edge of a cliff that lead to an infinite void. Yet he’s still there, holding on, wondering if it’s all worth it, even though everything around him screams that it’s not.

Every time he dares left go, however, he stops.

 

Why?

 

Hmm.

 

Wonwoo could go on for centuries listing all the reasons why Mingyu shouldn’t jump. He wants to scream them, loud enough for the world to hear, and then to hold Mingyu, hold him tight and protect him from anything that might dare hurt him, to stop him from doing anything reckless, to make him smile again, to repair his broken life, and to smother him with joy, now just another piece of the past he’ll never get back.

He wants to ask if Mingyu still remembers all the days that they spent laughing and smiling and playing together, if he still remembered when nothing mattered except for their own comforts and happiness, if he still remembered the worlds they created and the lands they explored, and if, just if, he still remembered Wonwoo, his imaginary friend, who’d promised to never leave his side.

Mingyu mindlessly shuffles to the edge of the roof.

He was going to die, wasn’t he? He was going to die, and Wonwoo would only be able to stand and watch, unable to do anything to save him, only left to wonder if there was anything he _could have done._ Wonwoo can see Mingyu’s future right in front of him if he lives on; it’s one filled with beauty and hope and escape, away from his pain and to somewhere amazing. All the friends he’ll make, all the places he’ll see, all the joy he’ll experience.

But no.

He was going to jump.

Wonwoo wondered what he’d done in his past life to deserve this. Burnt down a city? Never mind that. Probably massacred an entire civilisation. To watch someone so lovely grow, bloom and then wilt so fast…

Mingyu was now gazing intently at the ground below him, shuffling down, down, down.

No no no no no

 

 

 

 

stop.

Wonwoo begs all laws of gravity, of nature and all of fate and all of Mingyu that as he lets go, he’ll wake up, and everyone and everything will wake up.

 

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. There’s supposed to be a happy ending. All stories end with happy endings.

 

After Mingyu hits the ground in full impact, and a dozen bones shatter, before he struggles, the realisation hitting him that no, no, he didn’t want to go – he’s gone. Just like that, his heart stops, and steadily, the blood drains from his lifeless body. And Wonwoo realises two things; that in reality, there’s no such thing as happiness or magic.

The other one is that fate is non-existent.

Wonwoo goes, too. Away, far, far away, until he’s disappeared into the pits of oblivion.

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I write this? i honestly don't know.
> 
> (if i made any mistakes, or need to change any of the tags or anything, feel free to tell me!)


End file.
